New from Cambridge University Press!

Edited By Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt

This book "fills the unquestionable need for a comprehensive and up-to-date handbook on the fast-developing field of pragmatics" and "includes contributions from many of the principal figures in a wide variety of fields of pragmatic research as well as some up-and-coming pragmatists."

This volume is a collection of studies by some of the foremost researchers of French acquisition in the generative framework. It provides a unique perspective on cross-learner comparative research in that each chapter examines the development of one component of the grammar (functional categories) across different contexts in French learners: i.e. first language acquisition, second language acquisition, bilingual first language acquisition and specifically-language impaired acquisition. This permits readers to see how similar issues and morphosyntactic properties can be investigated in a range of various acquisition situations, and in turn, how each context can contribute to our general understanding of how these morphosyntactic properties are acquired in all learners of the same language. This state-of-the-art collection is enhanced by an introductory chapter that provides background on current formal generative theory, as well as a summary and synthesis of the major trends emerging from the individual studies regarding the acquisition of different functional categories across different learner contexts in French.

Table of contents

List of contributors vii Functional categories in the acquisition of French Johanne Paradis and Philippe Prévost 1–23 I. L1 and SLI Functional categories and the acquisition of distance quantification Marie Labelle and Daniel Valois 27–49 Apparent non-nominative subjects in L1 French Cécile De Cat 51–88 Comparing L2 and SLI grammars in child French: Focus on DP Johanne Paradis and Martha Crago 89–107 Comparing the development of the nominal and the verbal functional domain in French Language Impairment Cornelia Hamann 109–144 II. SLA and bilingualism On the L2/bilingual acquisition of French by two young children with different source languages Adriana Belletti and Cornelia Hamann 147–174 Explaining the acquisition and non-acquisition of determiner-noun gender concord in French and Spanish Roger Hawkins and Florencia Franceschina 175–205 Functional categories and the acquisition of object clitics in L2 French Julia Herschensohn 207–242 The acquisition of the French DP in a bilingual context Aafke Hulk 243–274 Null-arguments in bilingual children: French topics Natascha Müller 275–304 The semantic and aspectual properties of child L2 root infinitives Philippe Prévost 305–331 Cliticisation in the acquisition of French as L1 and L2 Jonas Granfeldt and Suzanne Schlyter 333–370 Name index 371–375 Subject index 377–381